Friday, January 4, 2013

I wrote a previous post about the
powerful healing role that crying can play, especially if you can train
yourself to cry hard and long. Many women who have heard me
speak about this subject have said to me, “There are times when I can tell that
I need to cry, because I've built up so much pent-up emotions, but I can’t do it. How
do I get that cry to come out of me when it’s stuck?”

There
are several techniques to use to get that dam to break:

Make a crying date with
yourself, where you actually set aside time and find a way to be alone.
Tears are much more likely to come when you know you won’t have to choke
them right back off again.

Collect some of the music
that has brought you to tears before. Listening to your favorite sad or
touching song can be a great way to get your crying started; and once the
ice breaks, you’ll move on soon to crying about issues that have been
weighing on you.

Spend some time thinking
about memories from long ago. It’s usually easier to start crying about
sadnesses from far in the past.

Let your crying take you
where it wants to go. Sometimes you will be sad about an old loss, and
suddenly you’ll find that instead you’re crying about an event from
yesterday. The opposite will happen also, where tears about a recent
emotional wound carry you into deep sobbing about a much earlier period in
your life. Don’t fight this process; your soul knows exactly which piece
it needs to grieve today.

Photographs can be
powerful for evoking emotion. So can certain passages from books, pieces
of poetry, or scenes from movies. Draw on whatever gets you going.

If you have a trusted
friend, see if she would sit with your or hold you while you cry.
Similarly, you can imagine your best friend or closest relative sitting
with you even if you are actually crying by yourself, and that image can
help the tears flow.

Anger can help to unlock
crying. Yell into a pillow or pound on couch cushions, and keep at it for
a long time, ten or fifteen minutes or more. Try to make yourself feel
powerful; the more your rage comes from a place of power, the more likely
it is to unleash your tears.

Almost
anyone can cry (especially among women), but not many people can cry deeply and
at length except by training themselves to do so. In other words, learning to
cry is a skill, like studying an instrument or developing your athletic
abilities. The more effort you put in the deeper the rewards.